A Status Update

Hey, everybody! Just poking my head out of my dark and foreboding Writing Cave to drop a quick status update. (Actually, it's a glass desk illuminated by colored LEDs, because my decorating tastes tend toward "James Bond villain" and nobody's around to stop me, but I digress.)

Glass Predator is done. Finished, edited, laid-out and ready to ship, and I believe Christina Traister is working on the audio version as we speak so it'll come out on the same day as the e-book and paperback, March 28.

Something I didn't foresee when I became a "hybrid" author (half indie, half traditionally-published) was how utterly weird the dance of deadlines and releases would become. For my indie stuff, I generally have to book time with my editor and cover designer half a year in advance (rightfully so, they're total pros and in high demand), so that gives me a fairly cemented schedule for the Faust books and side-projects. Meanwhile, my contracts with my publisher set milestones for handing in manuscripts, but the editing process is far less predictable, and the actual release date -- since they have to manage an entire stable of authors and set their plans way ahead of schedule -- may be months off from the completion date.

Long story short, it's an unpredictable situation that I just have to ride out while managing deadlines like a plate-spinner. Right now I'm hard at work on Cold Spectrum, the fourth Harmony book, even though it likely won't be out until the end of 2017. I have until New Year's Day for that, at which point -- finished or not -- I have to set it aside and get back to work on Surface Tension (the next Faust book), to make sure I have it ready for my editor on time. Meanwhile, every spare hour is being poured into the first book of the Secret Trilogy (not ready to officially spill the beans yet, but a couple of you have guessed what it's about), and that doesn't even have a release date yet because we're not sure if it's going to be picked up by my publisher or if I'll do it indie-style.

But what matters is when they officially come out, right? So here's the skinny: Glass Predator will be out on March 28, that's written in stone. It's looking like you'll get Surface Tension a couple of months after that, and then something around the end of 2017, though right now it's impossible to know whether it'll be Cold Spectrum, or the (currently untitled) eighth Faust novel, or the first book of the Secret Trilogy. In any event, There Will Be Books, or my editors will be very cross with me.

(I've worked hard to build a reputation for hitting my support team's deadlines. That might sound like a minor thing, but some writers...well, any time you're dealing with people in the arts, you run into flakes. Being a person of your word isn't just the right thing to do, it's good business practice.)

Oh, I have one other planned release for 2017 -- a short story in the Urban Enemies anthology, which I believe is out around March. It's the Harmony/Faust crossover I never expected to write, when Fontaine is hired to track down and capture the last four members of the Redemption Choir. The catch? He has to do it in twelve hours. Twelve hours of one very long, blood-soaked, Detroit night. This is a pretty big anthology -- Jim Butcher has a story in it -- so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it draws a lot of new readers who haven't heard of me yet. And also that my story doesn't suck. That's important, too. I get nervous about these things.

Beyond that, I'm taking a day off in late December to drive to Michigan and see Susannah Jones -- the voice actress for the Revanche Cycle audiobooks -- starring in the touring company of A Christmas Story: The Musical. Susannah is an all-around talent and a good friend, so if you get the chance to catch the show's tour, I highly recommend it.

And that's it for updates! I hope you're doing well as we slide into winter. For now, I'd better refill my coffee mug and get back to work.